98 comments:

I would prefer to see you continue with this project with your vision of what should be implemented and when, but if you are more interested in other projects, I would love to see the source code opened so that others (myself included) could continue expanding this game.

1a) At least make shops with rooms, some of which would be "warehouse" rooms and some would be "for sale" (with shelves). Also make malls bigger, and probably add glass windows to the front so they don't look like bunkers, but liks shops.

1b) More realistic locations. Bars and offices are the must for the zombie survival theme :). I don't like how there're only CHAR offices. If there were normal offices (with windows again, not like bunkers) with the same layout as CHAR buildings, and there would be more than CHAR, it would be much more "believable" (people need to work somewhere, right?).

1c) More unique buildings related to a city infrastructure. Currently we have a police station and a hospital, that's great. But they are the only two interesting buildings you want to head to. If you had more buildings like a big mall (as described in post 1), docks, factory, fire station, carnival, ... Possibilities are endless. Even a few more buildings like those would make districts more unique and less "the same stuff over and over", and the city more interesting.

- I am quite content with the current amount of items and undead AI, civillian AI is okay too -

2) Military AI: I would like national guard not to ONLY run around the town, getting themselves killing in hillarious ways, but also to make "safehouses". Basically a squad is picked a random to defend some small area, it set ups barricades (they already do it nicely) and survivors which pass by stay there if they want to sleep. Also army drops should be around this place. It shouldn't be constant, though, but at least for a few days.

3) A small problem with civillian AI: it's possible to get a civ in a "pathfinding loop" where it cannot escape zombies and decides to move back and forth endlessly. It would be nice if there would be check for repeated movement (like in chess, where it's called "stalemate") so the civillian had a chance to make a run for it.

==============================================

You made my heart to beat faster when I saw another RS post :).

And of course I would like more modding possibilities, but more content first ;).

I hope you can find enough motivation to continue. It's by far the best zombie survival sim out there.

It'd be cool to see a more dynamic naming system. I know it's a weird request, but seeing "ZombieMaster-533" tends to break the tension for me. Even if it's a random name generator with the mob type in parentheses if they're a zombie. So, say I meet a civilian named Shabob Wafflehut and he later gets zombified and I encounter him chasing another civilian, they'd yell something like "I'm not afraid of you, Shabob Wafflehut (Zombie)!"

I'd like to see a basic crafting system. Combining two or more items to make something new. No recipes or crafting skills (well, maybe one similar to construction that gives a small bonus). It'd give more item possibilities, more reason for almost any item to be useful in some way (often multiple ways) and promotes more emergent gameplay.

In combination with the above I'd like to see more inventory slots but with the implementation of a weight system. You can find bags, backpacks, whatever to increase your inventory slots (or use the hauler skill) and increase your strength to increase weight capacity. There could be penalities to speed for carrying too much. It also allows much more choice: you can play a speedy guy who moves about lightweight with just a pistol, some ammo, pills, and a ration or you could play a more tank-like character who carts around a minigun, has a shotgun strapped to his back and carries a ton of ammo but moves more slowly. This encourages playstyle diversity: run, hide, keep moving or try and mow everything down in your way.

The reason why I think you'd need a slightly different inventory system if you implemented crafting is because there'd be a ton more items that aren't THAT useful on their own, but you'd want to carry around to combine with something else. You wouldn't carry an empty sixpack of bottles and some rags (which could also serve as bandages) around hoping to find some fuel to make molotov cocktails if you only had 6 inventory slots.

The good thing about this is it allows you to make a ton of 'fluff' items to fill out new buildings. If you make a bar type building you're going to want to put beer bottles in it, as well as sticking them in the grocery store, but that's kind of useless. If you can use the bottles to craft molotovs that's a different story. Then you (or the modding community) can think "well, I've got this bottle item, what else can it be used for?". You could store a corrosive chemical in it, so you add a science area to some CHAR offices, maybe make a school and give it a science lab. What other items would you find in a school? Ok, well we can have chalk which would be like spraypaint, and sports equipment you can use as weapons, and a ton of food in the cafeteria. But what about tennis balls, textbooks, firecrackers? They're not very useful, unless you can combine them to form makeshift grenades. What about a computer monitor? Not very useful in a zombie apocalpyse, unless you combined it with a hammer and smashed a hole in it and cleared out the inside so you could use it as a helmet.

In addition, something else that would fit VERY nicely with a modified inventory system is an expanded equipment system, maybe with a paperdoll? :D People LOVE loot and collecting and upgrading their equipment. Rather than just left arm/right arm/armour imagine if we could equip headgear, torse armour, arm armour, hand armour, leg and foot armour, and then an item or two on our backs. As well as scavenged stuff like American football helmets, shoulder pads, leather jackets, steel-toecap boots, rubber gloves, leather gloves, medieval gauntlets from the museum and medieval armour of all sorts for that matter we could have makeshit armour: tires for shoulder protection, a bucket on your head, scrap metal plating tied with rope to protect your torse. If you were in a zombie apocalypse and you decided to wanted to protect yourself really well (as opposed to being lightweight and speedy, see above) you would sure as hell put a bucket with holes it in over your head if it'll keep those zombie teeth away from your neck long enough for you to kill them/run away.

- a better and more intuitive interface, with all controls by mouse,- better explanations,- achievements,- quests and mission given by npc- stats stats and again stats!- opensource on github or something similar to build a open community around it!

A win/lose condition would be nice. I usually play each version of Rogue Survivor for a while until I've seen all the changes and survived, then I put it away until the next version. Another thing I think would be cool would be a way to 'fortify' a neighborhood - by killing enough undead or something like that, you could make the area safer for civilians (or vice versa if you're undead).

Basically, I would like things to do other then just wait around and go out for food/supplies. Also, an easier way to find out where the Sewer Monster is - I got lucky the first time I beat the game and found it, but I've never been able to come across it again and seraching every bit of the sewers is a bit tiresome.

I'd like to see more unique building types like the hospital and police station.

I voted for that though, the other idea I have is varied late game food sources. Right now late game you can only get food from army drops and dead civilians, I think some other ways could be fun.

My initial ideas probably aren't very good but here they are anyway: wild animals that spawn occasionally and can be killed for food. Bushes or trees that spawn berries every once in a while. Cannibalism(j/k that would be awful). Zombie meat(maybe have chances of some bad side effect).

First, I'd like to see more complex interactions amongst the living. This could lead to ad hoc factions including one of your own. As resources dwindle, the factions may even come to prey upon each other. But I think the root of such a system is a more complex system for modeling relationships between survivors and most certainly a better system for orders/suggestions.

Second, I'd like the ability to make bases more effective. As it stands now, it's worthwhile to setup a base of operations, but the difference in resource use (primarily ammunition) between "at home-base" and "out in the wild" is not that huge. Once a big bad finds your base you can end up using all your ammo to repulse an invasion. So I'd like to see better fortifications and, more importantly, reusable traps (perhaps something akin to traps in DF). I'd like to be able to (given significant effort and resource collection) setup a permanent base of operations which is relatively safe. But with the continued need to supply it so that going out from safety is a necessity.

The two would tie together well with factions coming to own a building and orders based around defense of it.

Having the ability to establish some sort of 'safehouse' would be nice. Make sure that a player cant create a impenetrable fortress, such as having zombies attack every night. That way players have to look for wood everyday.

More building types like Deon stated would definitively improve the immersion factor. Buildings don't always need to have a gameplay related point even if it would be best if you could put a few unique items in each of those.

The AI is okay. And I'm not sure you can do much more given the AI system you're using, at least without extensive (re)coding.

Win/Loss conditions: if optional, yeah I guess. Some achievements would be nice and fairly easy to put in.

What i'd like is an on/off setting for ammo drops. Working as regular supply drops (but rarer). Because, yeah I have plenty of food, but even in large cities, after a week or two, it's really hard for a non melee character to do anything but running.

Quests: Sure, but I'm curious to see how it can be implemented properly in a world where NPC have a tendency to die in a horrible fashion rather quickly.

-

About the ideas dropped in the commentary.

The "fortress" thingy is not good as it sound imho. First because it's already possible to do something similar by pushing cars and placing barricades. And second because it changes the concept from a survival game to some kind siege mode by night + fetch quest by day. Plus with the current (abuse-able) leveling system, it would encourage players to sit in their fortress of doom even more.

Traps sound very good, though.

Crafting, or the tl;dr idea from 'Dead Rising', not bad but need a careful balance, which DR failed to obtain (hammer+axe=win). And yeah it's funny in a 3D game, but not sure it'd translate very well in a 2D one.

The crafting idea isn't from Dead Rising as such. I'm not suggesting we be able to duct tape knives to boxing gloves or anything like that and it wasn't meant as a comedy idea but a way to expand content and give more usefulness to items and introduce gameplay like "Great, I've just found X item. Should I drop this other thing just in case I find item Y soon and can make Z?".

Also, "Who would vote for keep it as is? This game is amazing as is right now but so much more can be done." - the option is not "Keep it as it is" but "Keep at it!", meaning keep working on it.

Great roguelike. but as Deon suggested having unique buildings would add flavour to the different districts like the hospital with the unique item in it... like a highschool with a small backpack or library with maps of sewers (prehaps).

Nah, anonymous, I already learned that while this engine is awesome, it's quite limited, so unless it goes open source we won't mod too much, only graphical aspects.

So as much as I love modding (and I will definitely mod it to DEATH) I would like more gameplay mechanics first, their alteration later.

I doubt we could add new "locations" via modding. it would require too many stuff to be changed.

For the good news: to attribute these awesome news I am starting to work on a tileset (and further a mod) which will make the game much less forgiving and hard to survive. Guns will be deadly, zombie bites too. You will run in fear and hold on to your pistol like your last hope.

The main difficulty will be the lack of status icons! That's right. The Impact is Major :P. Items blend with surrounding, zombies which attack YOU have red glowing eyes and yellow if they attack someone else, otherwise their eyes are dull. No more exclamation marks.

You will have to look after your hunger and sleepiness level all the time, no more huge "H!" and "Z!".

Sleeping people will close their eyes. That's right.

You can still mouseover and read info, but you will have to be less careless and more concentrated on what you do.

You may ask me "why do you make it so complex"? Because I am developing a new realistic tileset.

Currently there's only a "male survivor" graphic from the new tileset. I will change everything else accordingly.Notice the shadow :P.

Voted as:Just keep at it! : It would be interesting to see what territory your ideas would take the game into.

Win/Lose Conditions : Something other then a violent deathw would be nice, even if it was entirely optional.

Game Code/Open Source : Because it would also be interesting to see what territory OTHER peoples' ideas would take the game into.

Better Undead Ai : It would be nice if the Zombie Master unit was no longer required for zombie hordes, so that a mass of zombies by itself would instead act as a single hivemind entity. Instead, Masters would act as the "brain" of the hivemind and make zombies in the group smarter (tough zombies use the weaker ones as shields, blocking LOS/LOF)

More Content : Not just terrain, but also environmental things. Fog, snow, hail, lightning/thunder strikes, even the military dropping bombs or blowing up buildings... Even having a pickaxe to dig out a hole in the wall of a sewer, or other stronger constructions like cinder block /brick walls. Hell, even sewer holes that *don't have a ladder* would be fine.

(Other, post comment) : Done, but most of all, Game Code /Open Source would be the most important of my vote choices. If it were released, it would let hypothetically anyone get some coder to put their idea into action.

The problem with "open source" is that it would mean Roguedjack would abandon it, and try to find someone to work on it hehe... I would prefer Roguedjack slowly working on it, I mean comes on, look where we started and where we are at now. He's great.

I would like to see some kind of spectator mode, i.e. a mode where I can just watch a survivor/undead AI trying to survive/kill survivors, for those moments when I'm too tired to play and just want to watch some zombie apocalypse simulation ;)

I've just noticed that I forgot to put the link to this blog in my mod downloading page. It's fixed, sorry Roguejack.

" Original game is called "Rogue survivor" and is being developed by Roguedjack. Visit him at http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com. This is just a modification to graphics and moddable stats of the game."

Just a few ideas-Help a survivor and they might give you an item as a reward-military radio, functions the same as the ploice radio except you know for the military-less overpowered "those guys". It's not fun to be one hit killed after struggling to survive for 14(?)days.-ammo drops, rarer than supply drops but still there-as said before more unique buildingsThats all I can think of right now. Thanks for making such an awesome game!

I'd like it if the game was released open source as is now, but we still got updates from Roguedjack. Open source doesn't necessarily mean he has to abandon the project, it'd just make it possible to create more complex mods than tweaking weapon stats or whatever.

I think survivor AI desperately needs fixing. As a zombie, I commonly get survivors stuck in a repetitive back and forth motion two tiles away from me, allowing me to tire them out and kill them without taking any risks.

Also, it would be nice if well-equipped and trained melee survivors were slightly more willing to attack zombies.

Hmm, I think that having better human A.I. would be especially interesting, improving npc-npc interactions, what I would really like to see in the game are relationships. An npc could have a relationship scale of 0-100%, starting at 50% with everyone else except for a few other people. This relationship builds trust that they have with other npcs, they may be more willing to help them when in danger or when food is in short supplies just because they like them. I'm sure that with humans actually helping each other out, rather than having it done as a byproduct would make the game much more interesting. Now if the player could get some love from the npcs too by helping them... that would be interesting.

It happens anytime, though it's most common at night. If the survivor is anywhere near a wall, burning car, or the edge of the map, the survivor will almost definitely go into stupid mode, but it will still happen in the middle of an open intersection surrounded by clearish parks.

I actually would like to see some different kind of weapons or items in the game, something simple but very convenient:

Brass Knuckles, Dmg +2The only weapon in the game that can actually STACK with the martial arts skill!

Molotov Cocktail:Think of it like a grenade, except it last 5 turns (depends on rain) and deals over time damage.

Black Ops Armor, Pro +4Very rare, very tough, very protective, the top level safety at the risk of getting shot by two top quality snipers! (Makes the Black Ops themselves that much harder to kill!)

Axe, atk +3 dmg +5 sta -1Good for chopping off heads!

The Fire Department:This new unique building will be full of axes, canned food, police radios, flashlights, and great strategic structure (metal doors, generator powered gates)

Firemen:New NPCs that start with fire axes, police radios, and flashlights, have the ability to lead just like the police.

Hope that you continue this game! These new items will surely be easy to add to the game, seeing how almost all the code is already in the game, just a bit of modifying for great new content! Keep going!

Plenty of good comments here, so I'll be brief; I want you to keep this game to yourself because I want to be able to pay YOU to play it. Get it to a "finished-enough" stage (a la Minecraft), then start charging for it while continuing to update.

I'd like to see improved national guard.-officers have a different officer looking graphic so you can immedietly tell who's in charge.-As said earlier a military radio.-Maybe when they sleep one guy keeps watch and wakes up someone else when he's about to fall asleep?-The national guard should have to eat food. Its okay with CHAR since they live in a place stuffed full of food so you won't notice but it just seems strange that the National Guard never have to eat-Army Shotgun? We already have an army rifle and a heavy pistol so why not a shotgun?-Larger army rifle magazine. Maybe thirty rounds?-I've noticed that the NG like to set up a base but they only seem to sleep there maybe one night, so they should keep returning to that place to sleep since they fortified it.-Would it be possible for them to inform civis that they've got a base and where it is? 'cause that'd be cool.-Finally ammo drops. The military does well for a while but than gets slaughtered because they run out of ammo. And because they run out of ammo army rifles are useless. So if they were able to find more ammo they'd get picked off one by one instead of a sudden "everyone dies" scenario. Plus it would mean people could actually use the AR on ocassion. And after twenty days the only place you can find ammo is a char district so that would alleviate the "can't explore" issue the game has late on.Whew that was a lot. Anyway thanks for the game Roguejacked it's a ton of fun

Oh heres an idea for "Those guys"-I think its been said before but black ops armor it just wierd that telite special forces don't wear any.-five man squads. I've only come across two at a time so I apologise if they already are.-No sniper rifles! Or atleast only one per team. It's no fun getting instakilled rounding a corner after struggling to survive until you encoiunter them-Maybe theBlack Ops GPS should last longer? As of right now they're borderline useless especially when they take up an inventory slot.Thats all I got. (Insert clever post is over message here)

I sincerely hope that this does go open source but that RJ still keeps on developing it as nothing bad will come out of it. Not only that but RJ could then also focus his/her creativity to some new games. I'm pretty sure that it has been answered elsewhere but as I am on the subject of code, what language is RS developed in?Pardon my abbreviations as I'm typing this on my phone.

With a bit of work I could add the ability to :- mod what items are spawned where.- mod new items.- mod new actors, but based on existing actors kinds/archetype, as the AI are coded specifically for each actor kind. Eg: you could add variants of the skeleton, the char guards etc... but not change their behaviors or abilities.

I just seriously hope you get back to rogue survivor, or at least projects that are just as good. This game is too fun, so fun in fact, that a sentence containing the word "fun" should not be allowed to exist unless "rogue survivor" is in the sentence as well. Which is the reason i just made that last sentence a run-on sentence. =3

- More background story, maybe the ability to find diaries, unique NPC's and buildings. More items.

- NPC's with personality, e.g. crazy/sceptical/sententious/hot-headed/sanguine/melancholic/sensible...etc. , and then randomize their comments according to those different categories or something along those lines.

Voted for A and D. If you have time for it, keep it up, if not opensource it and choose which additions are canon. I would hate for this game to go astray, you seem to know where it is best headed, but if you have not enough time, just look through the improvements/changes and choose which are adding to the game and which are not. It's risky I know, but opensourcing will also add the possibility to port this game to mobile devices. If someone thinks of a way to add touchscreen interface for moving/commands I wouldn't need any other game on my mobile (maybe except adom).

Dear Roguedjack,How´r u doing? I hope everything is going very well for u.I´ve sent u an e-Mail to fuckroguedjackspam@yahoo.fr but there weren´t success at all ;-( (received the Failure Delivery Status Notification). This messege is only to tell thank you for your game "Rogue Survivor" because I´ve discovered it recently, and I´m enjoying it a lot! :-)Above all, I love the new approach to "The Zombies Theme" you have given to your game. Very good!(to be honest, I´m a little fed up of "Left 4 Dead", "28 Days later" and all of those quick-walk-modern-zombies!).Also, I´d like to inform you that I´ve translated into Spanish your game´s manual and I´ve written a kind of AAR-Tutorial, too, so more Spanish people are knowing your game :-) If you want, u can have a look in "Punta de Lanza" website (it´s a very complete web about wargames, strategy games, rol games and things like that...). Please, make a visit if you wish.

The manual translated into Spanish you can find it here: http://www.puntadelanza.net/Foro/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11840

The AAR-Tutorial you can find it here: http://www.puntadelanza.net/Foro/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=11848

Again, thank you very much for your game, and I hope you continue working on it in next future!Keep your spirit up!!!!:-DBest regards,(Rubeus)

I'd like to see gangs try to mug you rather than immediately try to kill you. Have them demand your weapons/ammo (and medikits if hurt, food if hungry) like hungry citizens trying to steal your food, and if you refuse, then they attack.

hey dud! i want to question one thing for u (and also asnwer the question (sorry my bad englhs ;P iam brasilian) well... i want more itens yeah like weapons and these stuff... ok now... why did u dont make like the guy who created linux? make this open surce! leave the how players aprimorate it! why tell a bug and ask for some one while u can fix it 4 u self and share whit the community?! dud the best way to aprimorate this game is just making it open-source! leave the players and programmers do you job and u still taking the credits! (not at all but a big part for creating the game and making it open souce!) the game will be more custom and better! pls dud i ahve see there are a lot of programmers wanting to participate this game by them selfs! give them this chance! give them the way to learn more and the game be GREAT! will be more COOL! programmers of all world(or just the part how play it) will be focused to make the game better!

well this is my motivacional mensage of the day...if some one wants to talk about this mensage me!cswarmen@gmail.com (i use this more)orsnuffleshp101@gmail.com (this is my youtube acc,but iam using this now)